


Waitin' For A Minute, Till' The Sun Sees Through My Eyes

by Sketchy_Skittles



Series: Gardner Bubble [1]
Category: Battle For Dream Island (Web Series)
Genre: ALSO its an au where match isnt in the tlc cause i forgot she was there in idfb, Gardening, Plant Care, also not beta read at all, garderner bubble, more tags to be added later, multi chapter fics! horray!, set during post bfdia and pre idfb, so just when theyre living in yoylecity beforehand, title from ANOTHER rex orange county song
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:55:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26038288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sketchy_Skittles/pseuds/Sketchy_Skittles
Summary: in which Bubble adopts a dying rose bush
Series: Gardner Bubble [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1890076
Kudos: 19





	1. a little intersection

**Author's Note:**

> look i can NOT get over gardener bubble ok leave me be

She wasn’t quite sure why, be it the warm sunny weather or her own curiosity, but Bubble wanted to try something different today. The thought hadn’t really struck her until she was halfway back to the Yoyle Needle, a tray of drinks for her and her friends in her hands as she paused at a four-way intersection.

She’d spent the past month or so turning left here, letting her out just a few blocks out from the tower, but instead found herself staring down the road straight ahead. It’s still early, she reasoned, and the additional few blocks wouldn’t add  _ that _ much time to her trip, so she glanced both ways down the abandoned street before crossing.

The pavement here was cracked, young grasses and dandelions poking their heads out towards the sun. Ivy crept up many of the purple-grey buildings, splashing their worn exteriors with deep, vibrant colour. Most of them seemed to be offices, if the old signs were any indication, with stories that seemed to stretch up into the clouds, or at the very least above what she could see without tumbling backward. A few shops and restaurants hung around as well, sporting a similar modern-esque look to the other buildings, all of which were given new life by the greenery coating them.

Turning the corner, however, she found herself staring down an absolute horror show. She gasped, flinching back and nearly dropping the tray.

A rose bush sat crumpled in a small cracked pot in the shade of a run-down bakeshop. Its leaves were drooping and terribly wilted, with what few flowers it sported bearing bone-dry petals. She crept towards the defeated little thing and knelt down. Setting aside the tray, she brushed one of the leaves only for it to break off and into her hand. Upon closer inspection, she noted small, brown spots forming at it’s edges. She frowned, humming.

“Oh noio, poor little bush.” She looked back to the plant itself, reaching for it. “Maybe Oi should—”

She cut herself off just before popping herself on the thorns, freezing mid-motion.

It wouldn’t do the poor thing much good if she popped herself, would it?

No, she decided, it wouldn’t.

Hesitating, she picked the drink tray back up and left the wilted rose bush behind.


	2. Strawberry Lemonaid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bubble reaches the Yoyle Needle and the girls plot out their days

The Yoyle Needle was absolutely _massive_ , standing taller than any other building in the city, making it a good landmark to orient yourself with, particularly when you spent most of your time there anyway. It had seemed a bit intimidating at first, all things considered, but after a while, it simply blended into the background. It became normal.

As it’s base came into view, Bubble spotted her friends clustered on the sidewalk near the door. Ruby and Book sat on the edge in the midst of a heated thumb war, Ice Cube playing referee. Pencil and Match leaned against the wall, spectating. Ice Cube piped up, though what exactly she said was lost on her as Ruby threw her arms up and cheered, seemingly victorious. Match glanced in Bubble’s direction and smiled, waving.

“Hey Bubs!”

Everyone turned towards her as she approached.

“Hoi goirls! Hope I didn’t keep you waiting.”

“Nope,” Ruby chirped, snatching her Shirly temple from the tray. “we just got here!” She plucked the cherry off the top and popped it into her mouth, tossing the stem over her shoulder and into the street as book passed Ice Cube her cherry cola before sipping her own apple juice. Match took both the iced coffee and iced tea, passing the former to Pencil, who gave them both a small smile of thanks before sipping it.

“I still don't know _how_ Gelatin learned to make any of this stuff,” Pencil said, looking at the crude drawing of Gelatin on the cup, “I don’t even think I’ve seen him in a kitchen before.”

As much as she liked his drinks, Bubble was equally curious. Back in his steakhouse, she simply assumed there were chefs preparing the meals while he milled about the restaurant talking to customers, but the drink stand he’d opened when they moved put a hole in that theory. Every Wednesday, when it was her turn to get the morning drinks, he would spend several minutes standing by the window chatting with her idly after she’d ordered before turning around for mere _seconds_ and returning with the drinks. She could see straight to the back from where she stood, which was empty with the exception of Gelatin himself, who, when pressed, only ever answered that he was “just that good”. 

Taking the remaining strawberry lemonaid and sipping it, she decided, perhaps, that she didn’t want to know. She tossed the empty tray in the nearby bin.

Bubble sipped her lemonaid, halfway through the cup when Ruby piped up

“So, what’re we doing today?”

“Pencil and I are, like, going downtown to look for a camera”

“What do you need a camera for?” Book asked.

Pencil swirled what little coffee was left in her cup

“We’re gonna start a vlog series, ” She replied, “Don’t want our fans to miss us too much.”

“Oh, wow, neat! Ice cube and I are gonna try baking yoyleberry pie again.”

Ice Cube smiled as Book said her name, glancing at her with soft eyes as she drank the last of her soda. Pencil glanced between them, smirking.

“Just don’t, like, make a mess of the kitchen again” 

“Oh, come on, it wasn’t _that_ bad.” Book replied.

Match scoffed.

“Like, as if. There was flower everywhere for, like, a week!”

“It was only a _day_ , Match, and—”

Ruby stuck herself between the two, cutting them off before they could jump at each other’s throats

“What about you, Bubble? What’re you up to today?”

Bubble jumped at her name. She hadn’t been focusing on the conversation, finding herself studying the droplets of condensation on her cup run down and land on top of her hand. The sorrowful little rose bush was burned into her mind, a pang of odd guilt chiming in at the thought. Perhaps she shouldn’t have left it behind, she thought, not when it so badly needed help, but— 

She shook it off, turning to Ruby.

“Woil, I wointed to do some gardening, but oim not sure…”

“Why not?”

“Oi need to move a plant woith thorns and”— Bubble glanced away—“I dont wonna pop.”

She sipped the last of her lemonaid as Ruby smiled.

“Oh! If thats all, then I can help you out!”

“Roilly? But aren’t you busy?”

“Not really,” Ruby shrugged, “and I like helping you garden anyway!”

Again, Pencil smirked at the two of them as Bubble beamed wide. 

Noon had hit by the time Bubble returned to the alleyway, this time with Ruby in tow. Despite the sun’s position the area was still cast in a cool shade by the buildings towering on every side. They stopped just in front of the withered old rose bush, crumpled at their feet. Somehow its seemed even worse for wear then before.

“Yeah, that doesn’t look good,” Ruby said.

Bubble hummed, kneeling down and inspecting a leaf. “It’s not getting enough sunloight over here. Oi wanna move it, but—”

“Say no more!” 

Ruby knelt down and reached for the pot, scraping her hands a bit in the process. Pale brown roots caught Bubble’s eye as she began hefting the plant into the air. They stretched between the sidewalk and the pot.

“Roiby wait! Your gonna break the roots!”

She paused. A sprinkle of soil fell from the pot and into the large crack in the ground the roots had dug themselves into. 

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Its ok.”

Ruby returned the pot to its place over the hole. 

“So what do we do now?”

“Hmmm, well”—Bubble stood up, Ruby following suit—“if we had a shovel, oi could try digging them up.”

“But I thought you hadn’t brought all your gardening stuff here yet?”

Turning back, Bubble peered around the corner, scanning the abandoned buildings carefully. A restaurant, a shipping outpost, a toy store stood across the street, flanked on the left by a pharmacy and on the right by a—

“Oh! That plant shop moight have some!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhh ive been sitting on this for like a month cause im not supper happy with it? but i really wanna move onto other chapters so im just gonna have to live with it lol  
> thanks for reading!


	3. Vines on the Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bubble and Ruby visit the plant shop

It took several tries to open the shop door, even just a crack. Dust, grime, and vines coated the cracked glass of the window too thickly for them to see through it, making the interior only visible through the small holes formed where the cracks met.

The hinges creaked from age and rust, and the bell overhead rang out for the first time in what must have been  _ years  _ as the door opened just enough for them to slip through. 

Bubble flicked the light switch beside the door as she entered to no avail.

“Whoa,” Ruby marveled, turning as she took in the room, “look at all those vines!”

It was humid and moldy, like many of the other buildings in the city, carrying the scent of rotted wood. The shelves, once likely carpeted with all manner of blooming plants, were instead filled with barren pots and the remains of long-dead plants. 

And dirt. Lots and lots of dirt and grime.

Bubble stepped to the nearest shelf, which was pushed against the front wall. Deep green vines crept down its sides and even up the wall, thick boughs of leaves blooming out of them, some speckled with small purple berries. They all spilled out of a single bush, seated in a purple-blue pot near the edge. 

Ruby approached and snatched a berry off the nearest vine. 

“Yoyleberry bushes?” She asked, popping it into her mouth and turning to metal.

“Mhm.” Bubble looked towards the plants growing beside it, all in bright red pots. The same thin vines crept up their sides and into the soil. They crept up the remains of long-dead stems and then back over the edge.

“But, wait, how are they still growing if everything else in here died forever ago?”

Taking a healthy leaf in her hand, Bubble replied,

“Oi don’t think yoyleberry bushes need moih to grow. If oit’s humid and shady they grow roilly big on their own.” She dropped it, instead looking at the greenery creeping along the walls and floors and tables, all traced back to no more than three overflowing bushes tucked around the shop. 

“So they just really like it here?”

“Oi guess so.”

“But what about wa—” 

Something creaked off to their left, old pipes groaning above a case of long-dead seedlings by the look of it. Sprinklers burst to life over them, though the pipe bent near the end, turning the last one outwards at the rest of the store and soaking everything through.

“Nevermind.”

  
  


Ruby stepped up to the till once the sprinklers stopped. Buckets and boxes were lined up on the ground in front of it, boasting a variety of small gardening tools, many being mold-coated and rusted. Kneeling down, she found couldnt read the labels, the writing having long since faded, but she could recgnoize them well enough.

“Hey Bub-Bub! I think I found it!”

Bubble turned away from the cabinet she’d been poking through—mostly filled with pots and torn soil bags—and knelled down beside her. She’d already found a pot to contain the roots, now she just needed something to dig them up  _ with _ . Sure enough, the third bin in the line held a small handful of old trowels. She picked up the least rusted of them, beaming despite the molded handle.

“It’s poifect!” She chimed, jumping to her feet. “We’ve got everything we need!” 

She spent a moment turning it over before her eyes were drawn to the till. A picture frame sat just beside the register, still in fair condition despite the years. Gently, she picked it up. The picture it held was faded somewhat yet still remained clear, showing a group of objects—five, by the look of it—standing shoulder-to-shoulder, all smiling brightly. A bottlecap stood in the middle, bearing no arms and a potted petunia on its head, grinning like someone had given them the world. Given the gift bow stuck to the pot and what seemed like the plant shop just behind it, Bubble wondered if maybe somebody did.

“Bubble?”

She supposed she would never really know.

“Sorry, woit’d you say?”

“I said, do you wanna go dig up that rosebush now?”

“Oh”—she set the picture down—”Yeah!”

Ruby held the rose bush up as Bubble carefully peeled away small chunks of concrete, revealing the roots that had spread underneath. She scooped them up, careful not to damage them, and set them in the pale-blue pot beside her. It took several minutes to dig up the years of roots it’d grown, but by the time she finished not a single inch of it had been damaged by her hand. 

She smiled as they began the trek back to the Yoyle Needle, a piece of the city’s history now firmly in her care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its MY fic and I get to make the fictional ecology that'll never get explored in full  
> reposted cause there were a few too many spelling mistakes lol  
> thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> sorry this is so short, i wanted to put together the first part and also wanted to sleep lol  
> I'll see yall whenever it update this (hopefully soon)  
> Thanks for reading!


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